The heated panic of summer exams is over, you and your students are still alive (although possibly in possession of a few more grey hairs), and summer is on the horizon. Sounds perfect, right? Well, if you’re a self-employed tutor, it’s a little more complicated than that.

In a post-Brexit and Trump world, where borders and walls appear to be rising more than being knocked down, languages are more important than ever. Their necessity and power to create and foster not only social, but economic and business relationships is now at the fore of the many benefits they provide, and I will explore their importance in this post.

The most common question I’m asked when I tell people that I’m a tutor is ‘But why aren’t you a teacher?’ — a valid question, the answer to which I’m here to explain. Tutoring is often seen as a part-time profession, something you do to bridge gaps between ‘real’, full-time jobs, a lesser teacher — in general, not a career. With that in mind, I’d like to tell you a little story about how I took this hard work and turned it into a company.